Thursday, April 07, 2005

Professor Baba Booster

File under: Hands Where They Don't Belong and Hagiographic Circus

The National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded University of California, Davis, associate anthropology professor Smriti Srinivas a payoffone-year research fellowship to write a white wash book on the Sathya Sai Baba movement. We're happy to help her with her research. Just click on the links, Ms. Srinivas:

Although he lives a modest lifestyle, Satya Sai Baba has managed to become a religious guru for over 10 million devotees worldwide, according to Smriti Srinivas, associate professor in anthropology.

Sai Baba has attracted followers from various social and religious backgrounds, a movement Srinivas said to be a "transnational phenomenon."

After 10 years of research and field work in India, Kenya and the United States, Srinivas said she is ready to finish her book on this religious guru and his global influence.

Besides finishing her book on the international Sai Baba movement, Srinivas is currently doing field study for her next book on the Sai Baba movement, specifically in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

We're inclined to question Ms. Srinivas' objectivity, as the California Aggie article makes no mention of any of the substantial controversy surrounding the Baba.

We never have to worry about our own objectivity, though. It just doesn't exist in these matters. Sort of like Fox News, we suppose.

2 Comments:

I was also surprised at the article about Prof. Srinivas's research and sent the following email to the reporter, Ms S. Zou, believing her to be the innocent carrier of outdated propaganda for the guru SSB.Sincerely,Brian Steel***(copy of email sent 2 days ago):

﻿A reading of your article 'Professor nets fellowship' (in The Californian Aggie) prompts me towrite to you to point out that you have unwittingly presented information from or about yrinterviewee that is both misleading and in conflict with evidence available on the Internet.

Firstly, there are TWO quite separate 'Sai Baba' Movements flourishing in India and overseas. Thesenior of these is that of Shirdi Sai Baba (died 1918) and the more recent one is the that of SathyaSai Baba (born 1926). The latter of these - the more highly publicised of the two outside India - appears to be the focus of Professor Srinivas's research. Referring to 'Sai Baba' and the 'Sai BabaMovement' is therefore ambiguous and in this case could be offensive to devotees of Shirdi SaiBaba.

The Sathya Sai Organisation (SSO), which has been operating for over 40 years, is well worth careful academic study in both thesis and book forms. However, what concerns me in your articleis that Professor Srinivas's approach to her subject shows subjective bias. For instance, bysuggesting that Sathya Sai Baba is "regarded by many as a divine being", she is concealing the realfact (which she must know) that, after declaring himself to be the reincarnation of Shirdi Sai Baba,this guru claimed unequivocally (and often) during the first 20 years of his Mission that he is Godon Earth, with full Divine powers. His devotees believe him and refer to him in this way, and hisOrganisation proclaims these 'facts' on its much-visited websites. The SSO even set up a lavishMuseum in India in 2000, partly to endorse these divine claims for posterity. Was Prof. Srinivassilent about such issues in your conversation?

Paradoxically, since a controversy erupted in 2000, the SSO representatives in several overseascountries (particularly in USA) have been in 'damage control mode' and in the past 2 years haveconducted a costly publicity campaign in their own countries, presenting SSB to the world at largemerely as "a revered spiritual leader" (as Prof. Srinivas also does) rather than as the self-styled'Avatar of the Age', who also claimed in a famous Discourse long ago that Jesus Himself predictedhis (i.e. SSB's) Advent. ETC. (There are other inaccuracies and tendentious points in Prof. S'sreported remarks but they can await another occasion.)

Perhaps you would like to check what I am saying by looking at Wikipedia (BOTH sides) andcritical websites like www.exbaba,.com . (If you also check 'Shirdi Sai Baba' on Wikipedia, youwill see that this is a completely separate organisation and that no controversy surrounds thatname.)

So it seems that it may be time for the professor to embark on some more basic research to achievea balanced study.

FYI, I offer below a relevant excerpt about another journalist who, apparently naively, presented aone-sided view of SSB in the pages of the NYT and is now quoted on pro-SSB websites.

I would welcome your comment.Best wishes,Brian Steel***

Copyright excerpt from an article on the New York Times 'Blair Affair', 2003:

"One NYT reporting anomaly (albeit of very minor significance compared to Blair's whoppers)known to a number of disgruntled NYT readers is an article by one of the 'Old Gray Lady's seniorreporters, Keith Bradsher. His well-written article, enhanced by exotic photographs provided bylocal photographers and full of interest and appeal was titled 'A Friend in India to All the World'. Itintroduced to American readers the prominent Hindu guru, Sathya Sai Baba, on the occasion of acourtesy visit to his ashram by the new Muslim President of India, Dr Kalam.

"This very positive presentation of the spiritual leader and his devotees to the American public,endorsed by the name and prestige of the New York Times (motto, remember? 'All the News that'sFit to Print') was extremely simpatico.

"Unfortunately, the colourful description and background information offered by Bradsher(including explanations by the guru's close devotees), was incomplete and therefore potentiallymisleading to NYT readers. What Bradsher had failed to mention, and perhaps did not evenresearch, was that, in spite of Sathya Sai Baba's undisputed appeal, massive charisma, and beneficent charitable Trust, he has become the focus of a great deal of media and Internetcontroversy and allegations over the past three years, and many of his disaffected ex-devotees areAmericans. Some are readers of the NYT and some of them feel very aggrieved.

"The allegations (mainly of sexual misconduct) and the controversies surrounding this guru's claimsto be God on Earth have surfaced and proliferated on the Internet. The sexual allegations have beenaired in newspapers like the The Times and Daily Telegraph of London as well as other newspapers and magazines in India, Canada, Holland, Scandinavia, Argentina, Australia, andColombia, and also in TV documentaries in several countries. ...

"Like most other information these days, news of these controversies ... is freely available on theInternet to any surfer. It seems that the NYT's Mr Bradsher (a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and the NYT'sBureau Chief in Hong Kong) either failed to take this basic research step or chose to ignore or dismiss the controversy and rely on what he found out and was officially told at the ashram inIndia."(Brian Steel, 2003)***

.... An appropriate name for your blog could have been Neti Neti.— Rama

While we understand that gurus are held sacred by many, they
are also public figures deserving of scrutiny. Our primary aim
is to inject a little humor into what can be an excessively
self-righteous enterprise, and to illustrate the primary truth that
no matter how divine their devotees believe them to be, gurus
poop on the same pot we do.